The Public Forum held on Wednesday, November 4 drew well over 300 people who heard how Charles County’s proposed Cross County Connector extension threatens Mattawoman Creek, our pocketbooks, and our quality of life with sprawl development. We learned that the highway represents outdated growth policies, for which there are viable Smart-Growth alternatives.
Using materials gathered by the twenty organizations comprising the Smarter Growth Alliance for Charles County,* speakers provided a balanced and informed discussion summarized here.
A professional planner with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation showed that the proposed highway would not relieve congestion nor improve safety on local roads, two of the claimed “purposes and needs” of the highway. In fact, the highway’s induced growth would likely make matters worse. The analysis presented showed that what the highway would do is spur sprawling new development, with many thousands of housing units leveling thousands of acres of forest.
We learned that this “business as usual” approach would help maintain Charles County’s lead among all Maryland county’s for longest commute times, fewest jobs per household, greatest forest loss per new dwelling, and worst sprawl development patterns.
We learned from MWS that such growth is harmful to Mattawoman Creek and the Chesapeake Bay. To make matters worse, the highway is also intended to convert the one-stoplight town of Bryans Road into a new city draining to prime fish spawning waters. We learned why forest is the best land use for water quality by moderating, absorbing, and filtering stormwater. And why surfaces impervious to rainwater, like roofs, roads, and parking lots are the worst land use by funneling erosive, polluted flows into streams. Thus the highway would harm Mattawoman by pushing it over the brink, where it is presently poised with about 10% of its watershed already covered by impervious surfaces, a known threshold beyond which our waterways rapidly decline. We also learned that Mattawoman is already listed as impaired by the EPA for excess nutrient pollution—and the growth induced by the highway would add even more. In fact, we learned from the Army Corps’ Mattawoman Creek Watershed Management Plan that with business as usual, impervious cover would soar even higher and nutrient pollution increase 50%!
From 1000 Friends of Maryland, we learned of viable Smart Growth alternatives to business as usual that would save tax dollars, sustain the quality of life, and protect Mattawoman Creek. It costs more to service sprawl than taxes it raises. An important part of the solution involves revitalizing Waldorf with communities based on light rail. The county was lauded for considering this option, but admonished for always giving it a lower priority than sprawl-inducing highways. Without this Smart Growth approach, we learned how nearly all of southern Maryland would become urbanized. Mattawoman serves as canary in the coal mine, teetering at the tipping point of serious degradation. If we can’t implement 21st century solutions for managing growth here, to save Maryland’s “best, most productive tributary to the Bay,” what is in store for the future everywhere?
From the Sierra Club, we learned we learned what we can do. Please contact us to help. And contact the governor!
*Members of the Smarter Growth Alliance for Charles County:
1000 Friends of Maryland
AMP Creeks Council
Audubon Naturalist Society
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Citizens for a Better Charles County
Clean Water Action
Coalition for Smarter Growth
Conservancy for Charles County
Maryland Bass Federation Nation
Maryland Conservation Council
Maryland-DC Audubon Society
Mason Springs Conservancy
Mattawoman Watershed Society
Port Tobacco River Conservancy
Nanjemoy-Potomac Environmental Coalition, Inc.
Potomac River Association
Sierra Club, Maryland Chapter
Sierra Club, So. MD Group
Southern Maryland Audubon Society
St. Mary's River Watershed Association